Let Trump build his vanity projects as a warning to everyone else | Opinion

Inflation has surged to the highest level in three years, the cost of living is up and we’re stuck in a war with Iran. But don’t worry. President Donald Trump is busy painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.

Hopefully, this new $13 million pool project doesn’t distract him from his now more than $1 billion White House ballroom project. Or from his $100 million Triumphal Arch project. Or from putting his face on U.S. currency and passports. And his name on buildings and airports. 

That sounds like sarcasm, but I’ve settled into what may be a controversial opinion: Let Trump build his vanity projects. Let his Republican boot-smoochers etch “President Donald J. Trump” into marble facades and slap that moniker on whichever edifice or coin or government document they see fit.

Let his failed presidency remain a stain for generations to laugh at.

Let Trump paint the Reflecting Pool and build monuments to himself

You’re likely waiting for me to write something along the lines of, “And then, when the would-be/wannabe king is gone, we can rip the name down, burn the documents and sandblast the Donald J. Trump off every stone surface!”

But that’s not what I want. Not at all.

When Trump’s second term ends, assuming America makes it that far, I want his name and image and his every act of tone-deaf, unchecked narcissism left standing. I want the Reflecting Pool to stay a garish bright blue, like a Mar-a-Lago swimming pool on the National Mall. 

I want his absurd ballroom to stand like an unsightly wart on the White House grounds. I want the Triumphal Arch, built when there was no triumph in sight, to loom as a toweringly obnoxious reminder of the dumb and egotistical man whom Americans – about 77 million of them when Trump won his second term – willfully invited into the People’s House. 

The Trump era is not one Americans should ever forget

Erasure of this period in American history would be too easy. It would let too many off the hook for a decision that, as I write this, is bankrupting farmers, putting U.S. troops in danger and depleting our military resources, pushing energy prices through the roof and driving income inequality to a 30-year high.

Trump rose to political power via cruelty, dishonesty and division. He legitimized bullying, eroded America’s standing on the world stage and sowed doubts about the very foundations of our democracy. He fomented a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol and then, defying all logic, came back four years later and conned a majority of Americans into giving him another term, promising a golden age of low prices and a vengeful end to an immigrant crime wave he concocted out of whole cloth.

Our country is now reaping what MAGA voters and a political media system hellbent on normalizing Trump sowed, and I’ll be damned if I want any of them – or anyone, for that matter – to forget the historically colossal decision.

They put a self-aggrandizing conman with zero regard for humanity into the most powerful position in the world. They should sit with that for decades to come.

Tourists will one day learn about and laugh at Trump's arrogance

So let Trump erect, print and distribute these unmerited honors to himself. And keep letting Republicans watch as it happens.

When a tour bus rides under the Triumphal Arch years from now, I want the guide to explain which president decided it would be a good idea, and how much taxpayer money was dished out to build it while a sizable swath of the populace struggled to afford ground beef.

Every day, people visit Washington, DC, and view the Lincoln Memorial and learn what an important leader the country had in Abraham Lincoln. They visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and understand how the civil rights icon made the world a better place. They see the names etched into the walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and recognize those who made true sacrifices for this country. 

I want future visitors to also see the outlandish giant ballroom attached to the White House like an ornate Costco and learn about a president who made no sacrifice for this country, but lavishly spent its money while the cost of living soared.

Keep the Trump name on the now-shuttered Kennedy Center

I want them to see the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts and learn that a living president came along and had the gall to put his name ahead of the name of a beloved former president who was assassinated. They’ll learn how Trump decided to shut the center down for two years for “renovations,” and how that was really to hide the embarrassment of artists canceling performances once Trump’s name was put on the building.

They’ll see the “American flag blue” Reflecting Pool and read about how brutally and rightfully Trump was mocked for his bizarre focus on aesthetics and gold fixtures and gold statues of himself.

That’s as it should be. The desire to tear down and do away with every trace of Trump will one day soon be palpable. I get it. I’ll feel it too.

But it would be the wrong move.

I want Trump voters to have daily reminders of the mistake they made

The fact that this unhinged snake-oil salesman was elected president of the United States on two occasions is not something any American should ever forget. Trump happened, and the consequences to our democracy, to our national unity, to our image around the world have been incalculable.

Once we move past the cruelty and incompetence, nothing could serve as a better reminder of this American blunder than a tacky, bright-blue Reflecting Pool in our nation’s capital. Or tourist groups breaking out in boos when Trump’s name is brought up. Or some prominent buildings that carry that same cringe-inducing name. Standing reminders of how easily the masses can be fooled, and how dangerous it would be to ever let that happen again.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk.